The Voyeur
by lokiyan
Summary: Blair was just a freshman the first time she gets a glimpse of true love. Not the fairytale, castle and prince stuff. But real, unconditional, unadulaterated love. And in that moment, she fell in love with the very idea of it. contains mild HIMYM


A/N: So this is clearly a crossover with HIMYM, the scene from the episode 'Dowisetrepla.' Hope you guys enjoy.

The Voyeur

'What kind of crazy place did Serena drag us to now?' Blair thought to herself as she quicly descended the stairs lined with a side of tinted windows into a decently lit bar. She'd already been hit on by some creepy blond guy in a suit and was not about to be subjected to more torture. She spotted her blond friend at the bar, her long, shiny hair shimmering under the lights, a silly, drunk smile on her sleeping face. Serena always had problems on holidays and her birthday was the biggest one of all.

"You know this girl?" A guy dressed in a black t-shirt who didn't look dress well enough to even walk her non-existent dog said to her from behind the bar. "Blair, right? I'm Carl, we spoke on the phone?"

Of course, when other freshmen girls from their school received phone calls from their best friends' phones, it's usually because the girl had left it at the boutique or a hotel. Leave it to S to end up passed out on the West side. "Um, yea. I'll just grab my friend and go."

"Go right on ahead. Let me know if you ladies need anything." Carl turned back to the rum and coke he was pouring. Honestly, who drinks in the middle of the day anyway? Apparently, the very drunk, very asleep Ms. van der Woodsen. Oh, and that guy chugging from a gigantic champagne bottle in the corner.

A young brunette waitress, also dressed in black walked by with a tray in her hand and a look that dared anyone to ask her about her black eye.

Blair took that as a sign to jet the hell out of there and back to civilization.

"S," she hissed and nudged the blond not-so-gently in the arm. "S, wake up!" She shook a little harder until those thin pale eyelids fluttered and her best friend's deep blue eyes stared back at her.

"Blair! My bestie! You came!" Blair nearly fell over as Serena threw her abnormally tall person off the stool and straight at her still growing body. She caught a mouth full of gold hair and she smelled smoke. "I knew you'd come! You're the best! Have a drink. Carl makes the beeeeest Long Island Iced Teas."

Ew.

"All right, come on. Let's get you out of here and home so you can change and sober up for the party that Lily's throwing for you."

"Psch, mom's not even home. She had to jet off to Sweden with her new boyfriend last minute, but apparently she's 'oh so sorry that she has to miss out on the fun.'" Serena's air quotes almost put a girl's eye out even as she walked towards the man drinking the champagne. Blair did a double take for a second - wasn't that green and brown dress from the new Marc Jacobs collection? What's a girl dressed like that doing at a place like this with a guy like that?

Then again, Blair could ask herself the same question.

"Come on, we can have fun without Lily, then, right?"

Serena was always touchy-feely when she was drunk and so she snuggled up against the brunette's neck and rubbed her cheek against hers. "Yes, we'll just have to have aaaaaaall the fun ourselves. Fun, fun, fun!"

"Great then, let's get out of this du-" Blair felt the waitress' good eye glare at her. "-this _bar_. Let's just get out of here before you get into any more-"

"I have to pee." Serena announced unceremoniously and shook Blair off her sleeve and staggered toward the back. Was that a jukebox? Well, nothing to do but wait.

Blair shot a quick smile at the bartender before sliding slowly onto the tall stool, careful not to flash anyone in her new Anna Sui mini-skirt. Her eyes wandered idly while she drummed her cherry red nails against the wooden bar. They finally settled on the couple in the corner, the one with the laughably large bottle of champagne.

The well dressed girl approached the guy shyly.

_**"Still drinking that?"**_

_**"I paid for it and apparently money's tight now so..."**_

'Typical,' Blair thought. She was just about to tune out of their mundane middle-class money trouble when things seemed like they were getting good.

_**"Listen," the girl started. "I've been thinking about this and I know there's no way to undo what I've done, but... well, I made an appointment with a divorce lawyer."**_

'Oooh, a divorce lawyer. Now we're getting somewhere.' Blair leaned a little to her right to listen more clearly, her eyes trained on her hands knotted together on the bar. She imagined all the scenarios in her head. What did this girl do? Did she cheat on him? Was she married and didn't tell him? Did she find her one true love only to realize that it's not her husband? Oh, Blair would be so devastated if she found Nate after she married someone else, but she knew she'd leave whoever for him.

_**"What? What?"**_

_**"Oh no, no no."**_

_**"What you want a divorce now?"**_

'Um, duh.' Blair deduced that this guy was probably not the brightest of the bunch.

_**"No, I just mean on paper so that you can buy the apartment without my bad credit dragging us down."**_

Blair sighed. Back to the money thing again. Where the hell was Serena? If there's no show, she wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. She had things to do, people to see, a boyfriend to seduce, for goodness' sake!

_**"Lily, are you trying to kill me?"**_

_**"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have led with the divorce lawyer part."**_

'Aw, they're too stupid peas in a pod stuck in middle-class drudgery. Kind of like those two dogs Serena's neighbors used to have who wouldn't stop sniffing each others' butts.' Blair began picking at her nails. How long did it take the drunk girl to pee?

_**"Nooo, you shouldn't have. I love you, Lily."**_

And there it was. Those three words that Blair had been trying to pry out of Nate. The three words that every girl wants to hear from the guy of their dreams. But it wasn't just that. It was the soft sincerity of the guys' voice that finally turned Blair's eyes on them.

_**"I love you too. And I want us to have our dream home. I don't know, it seems like this is the way to do it. So... Marshall Erikson, will you divorce me?"**_

_**"That's the sweetest divorce proposal I've ever heard."**_

For just a second, with her face lax and her mouth slightly open at the extremely intimate and private scene before her, Blair's thoughts echoed the words of the man. Even if the whole thing was stupid, that still was quite a sweet, heroine-like thing to do. If divorce existed back then, she bet Audrey Hepburn would have sacrificed herself like that in one of her movies.

_**"So is that a yes? You can't sleep with other women."**_

'Of course he wouldn't, you idiot!' Blair wanted to shout. 'Can't you see that he loves you?!'

_**"No. We're not getting divorced. Not even on paper. When I married you, I married your problems too. Ones I knew about and the ones I didn't. So, that was the deal. We'll figure this out together."**_

And they kiss.

This was like a movie. Except it was real. He said all that, the sweetest thing she'd ever heard, with a straight face while holding a giant champagne bottle and he did it all in one take. He forgave her even though she destroyed their dream home. She frowned and she wondered - would she forgive Nate if he did something stupid like that? Or even more basic - would Nate love her even if he caught her making herself sick in the bathroom?

There it was before her. This was what she wanted - well, except with nicer clothes, a nicer place, a nice restaurant maybe, and with Nate, of course. But that unconditional, your-problems-are-my-problems, I-would-never-leave-you-even-if-we-have-to-start-from-scratch, can't-help-but-say-I-love-you-a-thousand-times-a-day sort of love. They had it, why couldn't she?

Then again, in all her years in the Upper East Side, she'd never seen anything quite like it in flesh and blood.

Just then, Serena stumbled out from the back, colliding with a booth before giggling and apologizing and Blair snapped out of it. "Took you long enough, S," she mumbled, embarassed at the fact that she had almost been caught staring by these people who probably worked as janitors and lunch ladies at her school.

"Whoa, look, B! A giant bottle of champagne! You could keep a fish in that thing!" Serena pointed back at the couple.

"Yea, all right, let's go have our party now." She dragged Serena by the sleeve, careful not to disturb the two lovers in the corners. It was always obnoxious when love scenes were interrupted in movies by some loud, supposedly comical actors like Adam Sandler or something.

No way in hell was Blair going to be Adam Sandler.

"Woo! Party! Lily can go on her stupid vacation with her stupid boyfriend who probably doesn't even know her last name!" Serena began to drag the two of them out into the sunlight.

Oddly enough, though the decor repulsed her and the smell of beer made her gag, Blair found herself dragging her feet as she watched the couple out of the corner of her eye. She could almost see the credits rolling and the music playing. All she could think of was 'Lily's husband knows her last name all right. This Lily anyway.'

In the cab, Serena's head lulled onto her shoulder as she stared out the window. She wondered if anyone will ever look at her and Nate like the way she had looked at Lily and Marshall. Just one look and tell that the two of them were madly in love.

She certainly hoped so.


End file.
